December 2, 2009
Coats Museum News On November 28th, many
people traveled up or down NC Highway 55 to get to the Turlington’s Crossroads
area for an auction. Some folks were interested in the tools of antiquity while
others were curious to see up close the famous Doushee Shaw Halfway House that
fallen in disrepair. Those who were brave enough to climb into the old building
were amazed at the wide timber boards that had been used to build the structure
that has for generations been in the ownership of the heirs of the Willis
Turlington who purchased the 1806 dwelling along with 2300 acres in 1839. The Shaw Halfway House was located
on the Raleigh-Fayetteville Stage Road. Some might wonder why all of the old stage
road was simply not hard- surfaced rather than building the Highway 55 that we
drive today. This writer does not have information as to why that did not
happen but she does have an account on what the old Raleigh-Fayetteville Stage
Road was like according to Fredrick Law Olmstead (1822-1903) who was the master
of naturalistic landscape in this country. He was a leader of the American
parks movement in the mid-19th century. He designed park systems in
New York, Boston, Chicago and landscaped innumerable university grounds. Some
of you likely know that he did the landscape plan for the Biltmore Estate for
George Vanderbilt.It is mind bobbling that this
remarkable man rode through our future town on that Raleigh-Fayetteville Stage
Road and recorded his observations of the South. An account of his travels on
the road was written by Margaret McMahon, the wife of my former pastor at
Ebenezer Presbyterian Church NE of Coats.McMahon‘s article, “Highway of
Living History” was published in theFayetteville
Observer, January 06, 1963, 1D-2D. She saw the old road as a road of
remembrance- a road of romance, a highway of history. She beautifully wrote
“Down that ancient tract trotted painted Indians, pirates who forsook the sea
and became landsmen, frontiersmen in fringed buckskins, Scotsmen in rakish caps
and skirt like kilts, British soldiers in scarlet coats, and American patriots
in ragged militia jackets and coarse homespun, soldiers in blue and soldiers in
gray who fought a brothers’ war”.This she did share. Up and down
its long length rumbled stagecoaches pulled by lash-driven horses that gave the
last drop of life’s blood to move their burdens along the rough route. At
eleven mile intervals were the stopping points where waited fresh relays of
horses where was heard the clang of the blacksmith’s anvil. Midway between
Raleigh-Fayetteville Stage Road were famous inns which sheltered the famous and
infamous and were scattered widely here and there, along its 60 mile measure.
There were simple cabins and a few pretentious houses, proud homes all. The two
most famous would be Mrs. Mildred Barclay’sBarclays Inn in Barclaysville and the Doushee Shaw Halfway House in
Turlington.Between the Barclay’s Inn and the
Halfway House there was a region referred to later as Troyville. In this
settlement there lived the Daniel Shaw Family. We do not know what his family’s
house looked like but we do know that there werefive buildings according to Hamilton
Fulton’s 1822 cartograph of the Raleigh-Fayetteville Stage Road that also show
the Barclay’s Inn, the Doushee Shaw House and the Half Way House existing at
the same time. The heirs of this Daniel Shaw sold their land to James Thomas
Coats in 1875.Mrs. McMahan shared information
on the travel tale of the Frederick Law Olmstead who loved to jaunt and who had
developed acute powers of observations. When Olmstead visited the southland, he
decided to walk ahead since the coach was thirty minutes late in arriving to
take him to Fayetteville via the Barclays Inn in Barclaysville, Troyville and
the Shaw Halfway House at Turlington. When on his foot march, Olmstead
saw the land, the people and mentioned the maize he saw. It is written that he
examined the most absurd plough with a share not more than six inches in depth
and eight in length on the sole, fastened by a socket to a stake, to which was
fitted a short beam. (Sounds like this New Yorker knew his plows.) He wrote
that a mule drew it and its work among the stumps could only be called
scratching.A farmer told Olmstead that
he considered twenty-five bushels of corn a large crop and that cotton was the
only crop on which farmers made money.One must wonder what the stage
road itself was like. The journalist wrote “in places the road was a mere
opening through a forest of long-leaf pine; the trees from eight to eighteen
feet in diameter, with straight trunks bare for nearly thirtyfeet, and evergreen foliage forming a dense
dark canopy”. He wrote that the journey was toilsome with incessant shouting,
and strange piney word oaths and horrid belaboring of the horses’ backs with
the butt-end of a hickory whip stick until Olmstead thought the horses’ spinal
columns would break. From time to time, the stagecoach made detours from the
original road to avoid a fallen tree or a mire hole and the time the coach was
bouncing over protruding roots and small stumps. There was but little mud
because the soil was sand. Olmstead wrote that as they
traveled they encountered “a single wagon with a ton or two of sugar and flour,
tea and cotton cloth. It was unable to move, with six mules and five men at
work upon it”. At the end of his journey, he saw many scarred trees and large
turpentine distillery and Olmstead recorded that the last ten mile to
Fayetteville was covered rapidly, smoothly and quietly on a plank road. By the time you read this column,
the Coats Museum Car Raffle fundraiser will likely be history. On behalf of the
many folks who worked tirelessly to sell raffle tickets, thank you. Thank you
goes to the former Coats High School students and teachers for your
unbelievable response. You have not forgotten your roots and to the dozens of
strong supporters of the Coats Museum, the volunteers will work even harder to
make you prouder of the museum. Please be mindful that this article was published in the Daily Record
in 2009.